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Wondering If These Social Media Tools Are Still Free for Small Business?
When a small business budget can’t stretch any further, the small biz owner looks for free tools to help with social media marketing. Here’s an update to some tools I reviewed in 2016.
A/B testing at Optimizely
Back in the day, Optimizely offered users the ability to test variations of images and headlines across different devices to see which generated better results. While they had a pro plan, there was also a free one. There is no free plan in 2024. In fact, you’ll need to speak to a salesman to get a quote for how much it will cost you, so assume it’s pretty pricey.
While not exactly the same tool, you can still get an idea of how engaging your headlines are by running them through a tool like Sharethrough’s Headline Analyzer.
Blog Topic Generator at Hubspot
The Blog Topic Generator is now called Blog Ideas Generator and has been updated with AI technology. It’s still a useful tool for content marketers. You’ll need to set up an account, but then it’s free to get help fleshing out blog posts.
Branded images at PostCreator
PostCreator You used to be able to upload an image, write a little content, and add your logo for a branded image to use on your social networks. But PostCreator.com is no longer a viable website. Instead, you might want to look into Canva to create branded images.
Scheduling posts with Hootsuite
If you have followed any of my articles over the past years, you know that Hootsuite has been my management tool of choice. It’s awesome for managoing all of your social networks from one platform to schedule updates, engage with your audience, track analytics, and more. Unfortunately, as of this year, Hootsuite no longer offers a free plan, although they do have a 30-day free trial.
Finding images at Unsplash
Unsplash is still a great resource for stock images and photos. This site has literally thousands of free high-resolution photos to choose from with no restriction on how you can use the photos. Since you should be very careful about where you’re getting your photos from to be sure you have the rights, this is a very valuable tool for content creation.
So that’s my update on free, reliable tools to help small business owners with their social media content. Eventually, you may want to expand to some of the really incredible marketing services available, but these will help a shoestring budget get started. If you are already beyond the shoestring stage and are ready for a professional to take over your content creation tasks, give us a call. The Sprocket team is ready to help!
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Breanne Bannon
Breanne is a Content Writer, Social Media Marketeer, and Sales Associate for Sprocket Websites.
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